Nietzsche, Nihilism, and the “Overcoming” of Western Metaphysics
Topics for the first paper
As you write your papers, feel free to consult the handouts I have distributed. Nevertheless, please do not either copy, paraphrase, or cite any part of them. They are intended as teaching tools for use in (and out of) class, but not as sources. Instead, base what you say in your papers about Nietzsche’s views exclusively on his texts – and be sure to cite the page numbers of the passages you paraphrase or quote directly from. I generally discourage the use of secondary sources (Michel Foucault’s essay “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” [in the collections entitled
The Foucault Reader ; and also Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology ] and his book Discipline and Punish are very notable exceptions.) Nevertheless, if you consult a secondary source
(including a Web source), cite it properly and explain in a footnote or bibliography why you believe that it is credible .
I strongly encourage you to co-write your paper with one other student in the class. I will use the same standards for grading co-authored and single-authored papers – and remember that, in general, “two heads are better than one.”
1. Define the “Apollonian” and the “Dionysian.” Which does Nietzsche regard as indigenous to
Greece, and which came from the east? Could the Dionysian exist without the Apollonian, or vice-versa? If you think that it cannot, explain why not; if you think that it can, give an example.
What, briefly, is Nietzsche’s view of the (historical) origin of ancient Greek tragedy? (Make sure to explain his view of the development of the chorus, and the function of the characters and plot.) How does he think that Aeschylus’ and Sophocles’ tragedies combine both the Apollonian and the Dionysian? (If you are familiar with one of these tragedies, give an example of how this works.) Do these elements merely co-exist in great tragedy, or do they depend on each other?
Explain.
2. Explain what Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols calls “the problem of Socrates.” Be sure to explain Nietzsche’s view of ancient Greek values before Socrates, why these values were in a crisis during Socrates’ lifetime, the content of Socrates’ values, and the relation between these values and those of earlier Greeks.
3. Explain the madman’s statement in Nietzsche’s Gay Science
: “‘God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him’” (p. 95)? How is this different from mere atheism? Is
Nietzsche’s proclamation merely a statement of his belief (or, rather, lack of belief)? What does it mean to say that we have killed God, as opposed to merely expressing the atheistic belief that
God does not exist? In order to answer this question, distinguish between true or false statements and willed or unwilled value-systems (i.e., languages, or conceptual schemes;
Carnap’s “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” will probably be useful here) and relate the notion of adopting a value-system to “killing” God.
4. What is metaphysically free will? How is it different from ordinary will? What is the basic argument, employed by philosophers since St. Augustine, for its existence? (You may use the handouts to help you with this much of this question.) What is Nietzsche’s account of the real reason for our belief in the existence of free will – as developed in the Genealogy of Morals and
Twilight of the Idols ? Who (if either) do you think is right? Give reasons for your view.
5. Explain what Nietzsche means by “nausea”, “decadence”, and “nihilism” – and the relation he sees among these phenomena in Genealogy of Morals , Twilight of the Idols , and Thus Spoke
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Zarathustra . What is the will to power, which Nietzsche regards as the essence of life? How is it related to these three phenomena? What is Nietzsche’s criticism of nihilism?
6. Explain Nietzsche’s view in The Antichrist of the historical Jesus, and the subsequent
Christian religion. (Feel free to bring in John Dominic Crossan’s discussion in the optional video on the historical Jesus.) What does Nietzsche think were Christ’s values, and in what ways did the early Christians (especially Paul) misunderstand them? What is Nietzsche’s view of
Judaism as it stood during the period of the Roman colonization, and how does he see Jesus and subsequent Christianity as relating to the Jewish values of this time? Finally, do you think that
Christ’s values, according to Nietzsche, were typical of “slave morality” or of “master morality”? (Take into account, for example, Nietzsche’s emphasis on the fact that Christ came from the lower classes in a Roman colony – but also Nietzsche’s extremely sympathetic interpretation of his values and his comparison of them with Buddhist values, which emerged within the noble class.) Give reasons for your view.
7. Explain Nietzsche’s view of the origin of bad conscience, i.e., the feeling of moral guilt, as developed in the first, and especially the second, essay of Genealogy of Morals . What social conditions does Nietzsche’s account build on, or presuppose? What exactly is ressentiment , and what role do it and punishment play in his account?
8. Explain the philosophical problem posed by two features of Nietzsche’s thought as it stood in the mid 1880’s: his genealogy of nihilistic morals, and his view that the will to power is the essence of life and the ultimate source of all morals. (Be sure to define the relevant terms!)
Then explicate the chapter “On the vision and the riddle” from Part Three of
Thus Spoke
Zarathustra as Nietzsche’s attempt to reconcile these two features of his philosophy. (“On redemption”, chapter 20 of Part Two, is also very important here, especially Z’s statement: “To redeem those who lived in the past and to recreate all ‘it was’ into a ‘thus I willed it’ – that alone should I call redemption” (
PN 251). In so doing, tie the following three aspects of the narrative together: a. the spirit of gravity (the half dwarf/half mole who drips leaden thoughts into Z’s brain, and who represents the nauseatingly heavy weight of the historical past , i.e., the snake that has bitten itself into the young shepherd’s throat); b. the eternal recurrence of the same in the gateway of the moment , where the infinite past meets the infinite future; and c. Z’s spontaneous command to the shepherd to bite off the head of the nauseating snake, and the shepherd’s subsequent laughter after having done so and spat out the snake’s head – representing the future coming of the overman.
Again, be sure to define all of Nietzsche’s terms and “unpack” his symbolism as completely as necessary. Feel free to use any passages from Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Nietzsche’s other works as you see fit.
9. It’s very common now for people to say of someone’s actions that they find harmful – either their own actions or those of someone else – that they were “choices” made by that person. Is this really accurate? First, define “choice,” as understood by the metaphysical tradition from
Augustine onwards. Then examine both cases (i.e., so-called “choices” made by the person herself, or by someone else), employing Nietzsche’s view of value-systems and his “diagnosis” of the belief in metaphysically free will, especially in the relevant sections of Twilight of the
Idols . In this connection, consider the following question: Let’s assume that (1) I would not have performed a given action had I been in someone else’s
position in the past, or that (2) I would not now perform the action that I performed in the past were the same (or relevantly identical)
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situation presented to be again. Does either (1) or (2) imply that the acting person (i.e., agent) in the past really made a choice when they acted, i.e., that the cause of their action was their metaphysically free will? Explain why or why not, using Nietzsche’s texts (especially Twilight of the Idols , Thus Spoke Zarathustra , and the second essay of Toward the Genealogy of Morals ) as support for your view.
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